Ars Fatalix

Subsections

Introduction
Arx Fatalis is a neat 3D RPG, very much like Underworld or Ultima 9.
It's set underground on a world with interstellar dust-cloud problems.

And if you didn't already know that, you shouldn't be reading this because
the stuff on this page will totally ruin the game for you when you DO play it. ;-)

Anyway, Arx Fatalis is the first game since Deus Ex that I've been able
to get my teeth into and do bad stuff with. It wasn't easy.. the designers
have been extremely clever and most of the situations I could think of
(such as killing the King at an inappropriate moment) have already been
taken into account.

Hence, the game roughly follows the 'proper' way, (unlike U9 which could
be done nearly backwards). Anyway, enjoy it. And once you're done,
make sure you read Am Shaegar's Diary, for the rest of the stuff that
wouldn't fit into the Walkthrough.

Version of Arx Fatalis used

The walkthrough was done using v1.17 of Arx Fatalis for Win32. Some of
the effects mentioned in the Diary were done with an earlier build (1.13).

I've been informed by the highest authority that the X-box version contains
everything that is in the PC version (an astonishing feat, since the Win32
version takes between 150-500 megabytes of memory, depending on what it's doing).

However, it also contains various bugfixes, so the walkthrough might not work fully on the console version. Let me know.

The Walkthrough Begins..

1.
Set up your character. For this job we'll need a geek, so give him
15 points worth of intelligence, 10 points of dexterity, 6 points
of consititution and whatever's left goes on strength.

Our geek needs to have some M4d Skillz, so give him 40 points of
Object Knowledge and give the rest to his spellcasting ability.

2.
First, break out of jail. Don't listen to the burblings of your
cellmate or talk to him at all. Using the bone nearby, kill the
guard and free Kultar. It is tempting to leave him in the slammer,
but unfortunately all that means is that he'll try to kill you later
on in the game. (Also this caused problems with earlier versions)

A bonus is that when you do let him out, he babbles something about
you not knowing your own name. Uh? I never told you that..

3.
Look for anything good, like food or bones and then scarper down the hole.

Get the runes first, and go round lighting all the torches. Skill!
Now, open the cupboard, by moving all the rocks from one floorplate to the
other. Grab the key, tools, apples and everything else that isn't nailed
to the ground. Now go exploring, killing any rats that you should happen
to meet and stealing their ribs.

4.
Up one of the tunnels is the river, which in true British style is
filled with abandoned shopping trolleys. Wading downstream, light
the fire and find the spider.
Lead the spider back towards the river, and persuade it to walk over
the campfire, thus immolating it.

You can duff the other spiders up with a bone if need be.
There should be a few corpses lying around, rob them of any goodies,
potions in particular. You should gain a level. Don't bother with that
for now, we'll allocate the points later, when we need them.

5.
Once you're done, go up the lift, take the dagger and find the cells, where
Kultar is doing battle with a giant muppet.

Kill the Muppet Lord and steal his stick. Use the stick to open the gates,
and talk to Kultar a few times.

Kultar will say that you must hurry before the next shift arrives.
We don't have long, so light the cookfire, open the storeroom using the
key, and start cooking some food.

6.
Roast the rat ribs and the fish. Because Am-Shaegar is very clever,
he doesn't need to waste time gutting the fish, they can go
straight from the river to the cookfire without risk of food poisoning.

But that't not all. Am-Shaegar comes with super baking powers, and
can fashion a whole pie from just flour and water! Of course it's
better to flavour the pies with apples.

Unfortunately he only knows how to make apple pie (and also 'Nothing pie').
Mushroom, rat or fish pie is beyond his capability, it seems.

"Isn't it amazing what you can make from just flour and water?"
"Yeah.. glue."

7.
Anyway. Once all the food is done, put it in your backpack.
The backpack is a fantastic magical device that everything fits
perfectly into. You might think that pies would get broken in the
heat of combat, but the wonderful backpack prevents this, somehow.

Talk to Kultar again, and he'll tell you to get going. Kill him. Then leave.

8.
Upstairs, you should encounter a small goblin with a baseball bat. Kill him and take the
weapon.
Then make your way to the NE part of the goblin dungeons, where you
should find a sleeping Muppet Lord. Kill him with the baseball bat (aim for the head and throat!).

Take the key, and use the secret button by the bookshelf. Plunder the
hidden store, taking the weird key, and the Authorisation paper.

9.
Now go to the SE quadrant, and sneak into the first room on the left,
avoiding the gaze of the Lord and the little guy.
Inside is a small goblin and various instruments of death.
Kill the goblin with the baseball bat.
Try to be quick otherwise the Lord will hear and you'll have to kill him too.
Once the coast is clear, open the door to the workshop, and take the TAAR rune.

Now you can cast Fireball (Aam Yog Taar). This spell alone is enough
to singlehandedly kill Lord Lunshire, all his courtiers, and every guard
in the entire game.

If the Lord is still outside the torture room, test the spell upon him for starters.

10.
Make your way to the cell nearby, where Polsius is being held.
Fry the Lord (which makes Polsius crow and chuckle) and release him from jail immediately (don't talk to him first).

It's time to meet the muppets

11.
Now leave, killing all who oppose you. Ignore the fortress for now,
and find Polsius in the bar.
Ask him about Akbaa and then get him to forge the papers,
'in case we need them'. If you want, order a beer from the barmaid,
who seems to be involved with the cult.

12.
Now go and see Ortiern.
Unfortunately this is necessary to get the Dealer's license and escape thereby.
Get the license, and go back into the Goblin Prison. Go through, telling all the goblins that you're a 'dealer'.

In the spider pit, there's a Levitate scroll. We'll need this later, so take it.
In fact, with this scroll, a wodge of cash and a little ingenuity, it is quite possible to visit the Ice Dragon now.
But it won't do much good, apart from getting the Communicatus rune, so we're going to wait for a bit first.

13.
Proceed to Arx, killing any rats and spiders that you meet.
If you gain a level, ignore it and carry on. We'll assign it later.

In the city, buy a keyring, and flog any gems that you've managed to obtain.

Go and see the king.
Upon being told that the outpost tunnel is blocked, he will say that the
problem will need a great deal of thought. But before he's even finished
saying this, he's decided you should go and ask the trolls for help.

King Pog of the Fat People

14.
Go back down the caves and find King Pog of the Fat People.
Hand him the letter, and talk to Izak the foreman. Izak will let you into the
Goblin Castle, where you can, if so inclined, assassinate King Alotar
in a vain attempt to put his rival, the scheming Atok on the throne.

However, we aren't going to do that. Turn around and go back to King Pog.
Fry King Pog using the fireball spell, and kill all the trolls.
I realise this isn't quite what Lord Lunshire had in mind, but it will help
you immensely.

Collect the Vitae rune in the troll caves, which you can get to by doing a wall of death around the cavern.

While you're at it, take a pickaxe and start gathering gems.

15.
Now kill the troll on the bridge outside, guarding the entrance to Level 4.

In theory, you should have gained a level (by sacrificing the trolls to Ba'al)
and have two level points left to allocate. If not, find some things to kill until you have.

Put both level points into Brains, and pump your Technical skill up to about 60, which will give you
super-lockpicking powers.

If there are any points left over, keep them free for later.

Breaking and Entering

16.
Now return to Arx, having not only failed to clear the pathway, but also having rendered it impossible to be cleared at all.
It doesn't really matter now, because we'll soon have something better. Go into the castle, and into the Library. Save.

Now, using your super-lockpick powers, jimmy the door into Felnor's study.
Try to keep your tools as intact as possible.. if it doesn't go well, reload and try again.

17.
Now you've broken into Felnor's study, with him inside it! Fortunately he's
not too pissed at you.
Talk to him, and skip through his drivel. The chest should now be open, and you can steal the runes inside.

In particular we need to have Mega (must have it, we wants it, we wants it, we wants it!) and Vista.

18.
Once you've plundered Felnor's goodies, go back outside.
Sell the gems, and any other goodies, and purchase the 'Nhi' rune from the
provisioner (Shany's mother), if you can afford to do so.

We need to have the Nhi rune. If you can't afford it, go back into the caves, and steal
some money from the Goblin Treasury (Lockpicks are very handy!). This should easily give you enough money.

19.
Once you've got the Nhi rune, find the Arx GatePorter.
This is just outside the provisioner's shop. Cast 'Mega Spacium' on it,
and go back down the caves.

First, go back to the Goblin Prison, and activate the teleporter by Groo
(near the ice caves).

Then go to back to where the Fat People used to live and head to Level 4.

20.
Go into the abandoned mines on level 4.
First, find the GatePorter and activate it.

Then look around. In one of the circular mining cavers there is a set
of raised walkways fastened to the wall. Jump up onto these, and climb
around until you come to a spider's cave high up in the wall.

Burn the spider and kill the rat. You should also find a dead dude,
whom you can plunder for goodies, including a health potion.

There's another exit from the cave too, and it leads to another set
of walkways, which lead to a stairwell.
If you go down the stairwell, you'll be in Level 6, in a secret tunnel
which leads to a storeroom belonging to the Sisters of Edurneum, or,
as I prefer to call them, the Sisters of Mercy.

The Sisters of Mercy

21.
You may have tried doing this before. The Sisters of Mercy caught you
and disposed of your corpse, didn't they?

After some experimentation, I have recently discovered a way to prevent
this happening, and cause the plot to slip a few gears into the bargain.

Anyway. Go down the stairs (if you haven't already) and make your way
to the storeroom. We don't have anything to destroy the trap, so we'll
have to do it the hard way. This will hurt, and you'll have to cast
'Mega Vitae' and wait for Am to recover his powers.

22.
Look at the chests. There are three of them, two on the left, and one
on the right. The most interesting one is the one on the lower-left.

It isn't locked, but it is poisoned. Open it, and cast 'Mega Vitae'
when your health gets too low, eventually you'll burn the poison out.

Once you're recovered, look in the chest again. There are in particular,
two bottles of invisibility potion. Grab those, and if you have any
junk in your pockets you don't really need, put that in the chest as
a substitute. Save.

23.
Walk towards the force door, and prepare to hit the opening switch.
Drink the potion, hit the switch and run to the GatePorter room as fast as you
can.

This room is to your right as you leave the storeroom and you'll need to open
the door first. If your potion runs out too soon, the Sisters of Mercy
will see you and do something extremely un-merciful to you for breaking
and entering. Then you'll need to reload.

If all went well, you should be hiding in a discreet corner of the
teleporter room, and the Sisters should NOT be yelling 'Die Human!'
or 'Photon Eternium' at you. Make sure you locked the door.

Cast 'Mega Spacium' on the GatePorter, to activate it, and stand in
the middle, facing the door. Try to make it look like you've just
beamed into the room.

Open the door, and walk calmly into the hallway. March up to one of
the Sisters and talk to them. Some of them don't talk, but they
won't hurt you either.

24.
Walk up to the throne room, and talk to the Mother Superior. Now it starts to get bent.

Am Shaegar has apparently recovered his memory already, because he tells the
Mother Superior that he needs to have Zohark to destroy the great God Akbaa.

This is rather cool, because we haven't got to that bit yet.
She'll give you the key to the Temple of Deception, or whatever it's called.

We'll want to take the test, of course. Go into the library, and
take the scroll of Reveal, since we don't have the runes to cast it
ourselves yet.

You should be able to pass the test easily, and thence take Zohark.
Once you've done that, Akbaa will burble at you, and you'll find
the corpse of a Snake-woman. Ignore both these things, and make your way up to Level 5.

25.
In Level 5, kill all the trolls, and any violent goblins.
Eventually, you'll encounter the Water Goblins. Agree to kill the Earth goblins, because the Water Goblins are cool.

Find the Earth goblin camp, and cast 'Aam Yok Spacium' to make their campfire a bit bigger. Kill any survivors.

Map out as much of level 5 as you can, and make sure the teleporter is working.

26.
We are now about to engage in a money-making expedition to Akbaa's Holiday Camp on Level 4.
Obviously, you'll need to go to Level 4 first.
Look at your status, and if you have any spare level points, put them all into Brains. Pump up your casting skillz to about 50 as well.

Killing Ylsides for Fun and Profit

"We're here to make airplanes out of beef." - Alex Lifeson

27.
Now we need to do the following preparation.
Pre-cast three Fireball spells (Aam Yok Taar), and find the glowing barrier
that leads to the bunker. Dispel the barrier with 'Nhi Spacium',
and retreat somewhere to ensure you've got maximum mana.

Also, make sure that you've got as much space as possible in your backpack,
and that the free space is optimised to take a row of objects three
squares high.

You might want to dump stuff temporarily, preferably by the Teleporter,
for reasons of convenience.

28.
Once you're ready, go into the cave that leads to the bunker, and kill the
guard. Once you've got over the initial shock, it's fairly easy to kill
Ylsides. What you have to do is cast two fireballs at each one.

This means that you'll have to pre-cast more fireball spells after each
kill, and you stand a good chance of death if you're attacked by two at
once, but if you play it carefully and save often, you can wipe out the
entire base in about five minutes.

29.
Now, the core purpose of this exercise is to make money.

This we can do by killing the Ysides, and taking their wonderful swords,
(one careless owner) which we can fence off at Arx for about 650 quid each.

You'll probably only be able to hold about four swords, so it may have to
be done in several goes. For reasons which may be obvious to most of you,
we also have a ceiling of about 4900 gold coins.

Kill some Ylsides, get their swords, and return to Arx.
Find the blacksmith, and flog off as many of the swords as you need to.
After selling each sword, check your gold, and when it reaches around
4900, stop.

"Each one of these is a life.. a life you helped destroy!"

30.
Now you have around 4900 gold pieces, dump any remaining swords somewhere
where you can find them easily, and go to the provisioner.

31.
Using the teleporter, go back to the Sisters of Mercy, who, after
giving us Zohark, have outlived their usefulness.

Arm yourself up with fireballs, and kill everyone. Make sure you have
the scroll of Levitate which you got from the Spider Pit on Level 3.
If you don't have that, go and get it afterwards, or if you can't, I think the
Sisters of Mercy have a copy somewhere as well.

Do not take any money from the Sisters of Mercy!

Now, the librarian has that interesting book about the Ultimate Weapon.
Take it, and read it. Once that is done, and we have a Levitate scroll,
teleport to the Big Collapse (Level 2), and Save.

Draconis Albionensis

32.
Now it is time to visit the Dragon, using only a single levitate scroll.

Owing to the fact that you're a shit-hot mage (and the Levitate scroll is buggy),
the amount of mana it takes to remain airborne is less than the rate of your
regeneration, so once the spell is running, it will work forever.

The problem is that you can't seem to change your altitude, but we can
work around this problem by extreme cunning.

33.
Find a high part of the pathway which is opposite to the Ice Caves.
Save, cast the Levitate spell, and float over to the left-hand side
where the rim is at it's lowest.

This is where you need to be, and where you need to go.

If you're lucky, you'll float straight over it, but it's more likely you
won't. Drift back to the pathway where you took off from, and find a
stalagmite. Brush yourself against it gently, and you should gain a bit
of height.

Keep doing that until you're JUST high enough to get over the rim, and
drift towards the cave entrances. There are two entrances, take the
right-hand one, and float into the central ice-chamber.

If you gained too much height, you'll bang your head against the cave
entrance. That's ruined everything, so you'll have to reload if that happens.

34.
Now, this is the fun part. As you enter the chamber, several rats will
squeak and run towards you. But you're too high to be bitten.

Brush yourself gently against one of the stalagmites, not so that you
gain height, but so that the rats can climb up it and bite your ankles.

Once you've been bitten, a wonderful thing happens.. you start to
rise gently into the air, for reasons even I don't understand.

In this, frankly, bizarre image, the guardian has been bitten by two rats and sails gently into the air.

Steer yourself over to where the steps are, and the big tall icicle.

Drift around next to the icicle, and press yourself against the wall.
All we need to do now is cancel the levitate spell, but the only way to do that is to consume all the mana.

35.
Cast the fire spell (Aam Yog Spacium), which will eat up all your mana very
quickly. But even that doesn't quite work, so once all the mana is gone,
cast Fireball. You may have to use a pre-cast fireball spell owing to a peculiarity of the levitate scroll.

Now you'll plunge to the ground, possibly ricking your ankle.
Never mind, go into the cave. Using a fireball spell, melt the doorway and
enter the dragon's cave. The dragon will land and look at you suspiciously.

Who you lookin' at, human?

36.
Go up to the dragon, and talk to her (she is not amused if you talk to her ass instead of her face). The dragon will probably tell you to go away.
When the dragon stops speaking (this is hard, since the dragon sometimes mumbles to herself and you can't hear it),
purchase one of her eggs, by giving her all your money.

Now you'll have the egg, even though you haven't negotiated a price first!

Sadly we cannot thank the dragon or leave her any positive feedback,
so just leave.
Find somewhere safe to keep the egg, because we can't actually use it yet, and go back to Akbaa's bunker,
so we can turn more Ylside swords into hard cash and experience points.

37.
Once you're rolling in ill-earned loot, go down to level 5, and find the camp which belongs to the twins.
They buy and sell stuff.

Purchase a copy of the Movis rune. Now we'll be able to cast Levitate any time we need it.

Now go back to the Ice caves. The levitate spell as cast by you works slightly
different from the scroll, in that you actually fall down when your mana
expires. There is a bag in one of the caves, which will double your inventory space.

In the Temple of Love
love love love love love love..

38.
Now it's time to visit the Temple of Love. The game is now sufficiently
messed up that we can't get the password to the Temple anymore, so we have
to use another approach.

Go to the tavern by the fortress (where Ortiern is still waiting in vain for aid).
Tizzy the barmaid, being in league with Akbaa, has a key to the Temple of Akbaa,
but, as the mouse said, 'we have to remove it first.'

If you have no qualms about it, we can get the key by cutting her open, but the entire tavern will rush to her aid, and many innocent people will therefore be slaughtered in self-defence.

What I did was this: you should have around 40 skill points still unallocated.
Bump your stealth up to around 55, which allows you to steal things, and save.
Then hide next to the Temple door, and cast Invisibility (Nhi Vista, or 'Ny Pizza').

Go back to the barmaid, who can kind-of-see you, and jump onto the bar.
Crouch and lean out forward enough that you can see her purse.
Take the key, and she should not notice.

A more bloodythirsty alternative (which I discovered after writing this)
is that you can cast Invisibility and THEN Fireball, resulting in a dead
barmaid which can easily be pickpocketed.
The patrons ignore it completely since it's perfectly normal for the
barmaid to suddenly explode after being hit by a fireball appearing from
nowhere.

39.
Once you have the key, by whatever means you see fit, hang around
the bar until your health and magic are both replenished.

Then, making sure you have a good stock of fireball spells ready, open
the door and kill the Ylside. More swords for me!

Replensish your fireball spells and go down into the Temple of Love.

..and the Temple of Love will fall before
This black wind calls my name to you no more..

Run for cover in the Temple of Love

40.
In the temple, you will be assailed by many violent priests. Kill each one as they attack you, and take any goodies you find about their person.
Some of the priests will have the lava-lamps of Akbaa.. take these
and put them in the chest by the temple entrance, because we don't
want them yet.

The lava-lamps of Akbaa

Gather the runes, in particular Stregu, which is rather useful.

41.
Go into the room with the blind priest. Tell him you're a priest too
and that you want to pray to Akbaa (which is almost correct).

If you've seen this dozens of times, try pressing Escape rapidly, and
the conversation runs something like 'Yes, Yes, Yes, How, Very..'

Now it's time for some fun (and profit). Save first, as you're going
to want to practice this.

On the right hand side of the room as you enter, there is a secret
button that leads to a chamber containing a dangerous liche that
wakes up if you start rummaging through his things.

Once this happens, the doorway will close, trapping you inside.
But Am has a few tricks up his sleeve, to whit, gibbon-power.

It is actually possible for Am to reach through the wall, and press
the button through the stonework, in a manner that surpasses
even System Shock and Ultima 9.

Try this a few times (reloading, obviously) to make sure you've got
it down pat. Once you're ready, it's time to deal with the Liche.

42.
Enter the secret room, and open the forbidden chest. Don't take
anything, just wake the Liche up and open the door ASAP.
Run outside and slam the door shut. There are in fact two ways we can
kill the liche, both of which are rather entertaining, and fairly similar.

If you managed to close the door fully, the liche will be trapped
inside the secret chamber, but its hands will still be poking out
of the wall.

Get up to the doorway, but not too close in case it manages to zap you,
and cast Incinerate (Aam Mega Yog) on the liche's hands, which you should
be able to click on through the wall.
Do this a few times and the liche will die. In the background, the blind
priest still chants and prays, oblivious to the violence and cacophony.

It is also possible, though harder, to close the door on the liche's
head. If you do this about three times, the liche will be crushed
flat like in Terminator.

"You're terminated, ____er!"

43.
Once the liche has been killed (again?) you can gather up his wealth,
read his diary, and add the lava-lamp to the cache.

Once this is done, go into the security room, and shut down the system.

Next we'll have to deal with Suiberis the Astrologer, but first we
have a short detour. Before you go, pick up the golem hearts and any
other valuables, so that we can pawn them off somewhere.

44.
It is most likely that you're strength 9, equipped only with a shortsword.
This isn't really adequate for killing the daemon that Suiberis will summon.

What you might want to do is go somewhere else and find monsters to kill
or locks to pick, until you have gained a level, and can give yourself
10 strength units. That will let you wield a small longsword.

You'll also need to have 40 close combat skill points.

45.
While you are doing this, pay a brief visit to Arx to perform a few
important tasks, and cause a little mayhem on the side.

Make your way to the guardroom, and stop outside. Cast invisibility,
(Nhi Vista) go inside and then blow Carlo away with a fireball.
Pick his pockets (quickly) to get the keys and parchment, then leave.

Because you were invisible, they don't know who to blame. You can
even do this to the King if you so choose, but we aren't going to.

Et tu, Carlo?

46.
Now, take the paper that Carlo had and read it. Now go outside the
throne room and find somewhere quiet. Make sure you've got full mana,
and three fireball spells lined up.

It is time to dispose of two guards in the throne room, the ones whose
job it is to prevent you from going upstairs. Cast invisibility just outside
the throne room. Go inside, and blow the guards away in front of the King.

Quickly, walk upstairs and find the teleport chamber.

Activate it and then go downstairs. It doesn't matter that you're
visible now, because only the guards cared, and they're dead.

47.
Walk up to the king and give him Carlo's paper. I've no idea what all
this is about, but it's always fun to kill some person at random and
then discover they were evil. It just goes to show that two wrongs can sometimes make a right..

Now talk to the King again, and he'll tell you to run along and not
bother him anymore. At last, he has finally realised that you have
no intention of clearing the pathway to the Outpost.

48.
Now it is time to deal with Suiberus. Make your way back to the
Temple of Love. Go into the Meteor Chamber and kill the daemon.

I was lucky when writing this, and the daemon got itself stuck in a
wall, leaving it helpless before my blade.

49.
Once the daemon has been sent back to Hell, you free a woman, who
promptly leaves in some mysterious way (all the exits are firmly closed).

Poke the meteor. Am is confused because it starts attacking him.
Leave the temple via the goblin prison, which shows you a nice cutscene
of someone you've never met before being killed, and return to the Kingdom.

Use the newly-opened teleport link to the Castle.

An Unexpected Meeting

50.
As soon as you open the door, the game flips out and we have a most
unexpected meeting.

It seems that Carlo is not only back from the dead, but also back in
the King's good books. Hmmm.

Anyway, let the cinematic run, it won't matter at all in a few moments.

Let's Go Do Some Crimes.

51.
Now it is time to release your hatred. Ensure you have maximum mana and three
fireball spells lined up, and save.

Now usurp the throne by slaughtering the King. You can replenish your
stock of fireballs (and mana) by running round and round the throne room,
precasting the spells as you run down the corridor.

Hold down the forwards key, and steer by nudging the mouse cursor
to the right or left-hand side of the screen (depending on whether
you're doing clockwise or anticlockwise circuits of the room).

It's a bit of a knack but easily possible with a bit of practise.
(I knew my earlier attempts at Regicide would be useful!)

Kill all the guards, Felnor, the cook, everyone in the castle.
Birds, trees, fish, reptiles, all life is my enemy and all life
shall perish under the reign of Sutekh the Destroyer!

"Your evil is my good. Where I tread, I leave nothing but dust, ashes. I find that good."

52.
Now the castle is full of smouldering corpses and you probably have
shitloads of experience. Make sure that you've stripped the dead
of any booty and most especially, keys.

Leaving through the front door is not the best idea because the
guards outside will be after your blood.
It is very difficult to engage in combat outside since the game
tends to use all the memory and drop to a rate of ten seconds per frame.

This makes it impossible to precast spells and thereby replensish
your stock.
Instead, take the castle teleporter to level 4 and find the lake.

Krahoz Has Spoken

53.
Standing near the lake is the 'Mysterious Woman'.
We're playing hardball now, and we aren't going to waste time pissing
around in the crypt, so blow her apart with the fireball spell and take
the dagger-key.

Replenish your fireball spells and make sure you have full mana before
proceeding, as there is a LOT of ass that needs kicking.

As soon as you enter the Rebel Camp, two guards will attack you.
Kill them, and replenish. Wander around the camp slaying all
who oppose you. Once everyone is dead (except the rats, since they
aren't opposing you here for some reason) go to the stores and take a
second bag. Now you have three bags worth of carrying capacity.

54.
Go to the compound where Krahoz is kept. Slay any guards and make
sure you jump over all the red trap things. You might have to
dick about with the levers first, but it's perfectly simple to
take the Ring of Power.

Success! Wear Krahoz, and Zohark too.

Find the tent that belongs to the leader of the rebels. There is
a scroll of Dispel Trap, which is handy. Nab that and leave the camp.

"Each one of these is a guard.. a guard you helped destroy!"

55.
Now return to the Temple of Love, using the trade entrance, i.e. the goblin
prison. There is a priest there.
Ignore him and poke the meteor. Now the meteor has been turned to a
little heap of glowing powder and the priest has buggered off (understandably).

Snort take the koltk powder, and return to the Kingdom. Make certain that
you use the teleporter into the Castle. You'll find a guard
slumped against the wall.

Talk to him, and you'll hear one of the most heartfelt pieces of voice
acting since the BBC did 'Lord Of The Rings'.

56.
Now it seems that the castle is under new management. Make sure you
are in typical combat readiness (i.e. three fireball spells and full mana)
before purging the intruders from the throne that isn't yours by right.

Something isn't quite right.. the Ylsides have tidied away the
King's body and also the guards. Some of the rooms are locked and inaccessable.

For laughs, go into the room which would have been yours if we hadn't
betrayed the King's trust. There is a fourth bag in there. But if you try
and use the bag, Am Shaegar says that it can't be done in someone else's voice.

Ah good, the decorator has been.

57.
Take out the Ylsides. Gather up their swords, too.

Once all the other Ylsides are dead, go into the prison cell, where
we weren't told the King was being held, if he was still alive, which he
isn't anyway. Make sure you have some fireball spells.

When you enter, Kultar appears and says he'll kill you. I guess this
is fair, since we did murder him back in Act 1, Scene 2.
Now we'll have to do it again. Kill Kultar really properly this time
and jump down into the sewer, and back into the city itself.

Yay, more Ylside swords for me!

58.
Even though the entire city wants to see you hanged, beheaded and
burned for your most vile and heinous acts of treason, it is still
possible to sell swords to the blacksmith.

While he's busy working, he faces away from you. You can deposit swords
into his chests and he'll lob the correct change your way without
even glancing.

The problem arises if he should see you, because then he'll have to
die, but if you just act normal and don't disturb him it will work
fine (Paralyse may help too..).

You may find that the Blacksmith has gone to bed. If so, you can still sell your haul to the Twins on Level 5.

59.
For entertainment, go into the Guard room. You'll find Carlo dead,
exactly where he was before, despite his brief resurrection in the
castle. Go back into the castle. Now that the Ylsides are gone,
some sick bastard has put the King's dead body back into the throne room!
Ah well. Head back into the castle's GatePorter room.

Now we have the Koltk powder, which is the final ingredient necessary
to make the Ultimate Weapon. Take the GatePorter link to the outpost
of the Sisters of Mercy on Level 6, and from there take the steps
down to Blorch, home of the Slaughtering Rat-People.

"You'll be assigned to Blorch, home of the Slaughtering Rat-People."

60.
The Slaughtering Rat-People have a very odd lifestyle which apparently
revolves around feeding people into giant pumpkins.
Still, we mustn't be judgemental. Sneak around through the caves
trying not to gawp at the cool terrible things which they have been doing.

Make your way to the dwarven mines, and try to avoid killing the
rat-people where possible, since they are, after all, only murderous
thieves just like you or I.

61.
Guarding the dwarven caves is a giant worm. It sucks.
Basically you'll have to keep casting fireballs at the thing, and
eventually it will implode into a few shards of ick about the size of a pig.

62.
Once you're in the dwarf caves, make sure you activate the teleporter
and save into a slot before proceeding, just in case it goes wrong.

When you try to leave the kitchen, a horrible Beast will appear.
Run away through the doors and jump over the weird lava pit.
When you come to the dwarf corpse, save, and grab everything including
the meat.

63.
When the Beast breaks through, flee through the door and into the
grinding room. If you're really quick, it's possible to open the
hatchway on the first try, without activating the grinder.

Otherwise, you'll have to squish the beast in the grinder, using
the bits of dwarf as bait.

64.Once the Beast is dead, we have a little problem, in that
the dwarves are all dead too, so we can't just ask them nicely to
make a sword. Well, I suppose you can, but don't expect a reply.

So it looks like we'll have to do it ourselves. Fortunately, the
dwarves have been working to achieve ISO 9000 compliance, so all
their procedures are fully documented in a nice little three-ring
binder, which we just happen to have.

65.
The reason they didn't pass their ISO 9000 inspection is that
they forgot to label everything. This sucks, because we don't have
a clue what any of the machinery is, except for the smelter, which is
pretty much self-evident.

Anyway, first we need some mithril. That is in the mining caverns,
in the lowest part of the mine.
You can use the nice teleporter system to transfer the mithril,
or you can just pick it up with both hands and lug it to the grinding
room yourself.

A sword that was to place him on the Throne!

66.
Grind the mithril in the grinder, which is actually more like a
press. Then take all the little bits, and don't forget to take the
sword mould, which is in the grinding room as well.

Take two bits of mithril, and dump them in the oven in the forge room.
Also dump the bag of Koltk powder there too, and we'll have a nice
ingot of mithril-koltk alloy.

You can also make a plain mithril ingot too, as well as ingots of
iron or gold. You cannot make decorative gold swords, though, which is a shame.

67.
The sword-maker is the weird thing opposite from the smelter.
Find the battery compartment and plug in a crystal.
Stand upon the steps. From here, you must put the ingot in the top (pretty much self-evident),
the mould under the right-hand stamp, (uh?) and nothing at all under the
left-hand stamp.

It took me several days to work this out.

Once it is all in place, hit the power switch and the right-hand-stamp
will come down, totally missing the mould yet somehow scanning the pattern
in it, even though we only have the lower half of the pattern, thus giving
us an unusable sword with a flat top.

Then the left-hand press will come down depositing the sword of power
the other side.

68.
If you want to make another mithril sword so you can sell it for oodles
of gold, you may as well. Once you've got the sword, look around for the
keys, which will let you out of the dwarf complex, and find the GatePorter.

There's just one more thing to do before we take on Akbaa. We need
to gather up the goodies which we've left elsewhere.
Teleport to the place where you left the dragon egg (I keep mine on the
L2 teleporter) and then go to the Temple of Love, to pick up the three
Lava Lamps of Akbaa, and kill some more Ylsides so we can flog their swords off.

69.
Once you have the egg, use it on your nice black meteor sword, and
place the sword on the ground. Cast Enchant on it (Mega Stregu Cosu).

You'll need to have a casting ability of at least 62 for this to work.

Next, go on a little shopping trip. You must obtain a bow and at least
two quivers filled with arrows. I bought mine from the Twins, but that
might have been because I had previously sold the kit to them in the
first place while short of cash.

You should be able to get thse items by plundering the store room in
the Rebel Camp.

70.
Now teleport to Level 4, and go into the bunker.
There would be an emotional reunion and parting around this stage,
if it weren't for the fact that we've killed everyone involved.

As you approach the bunker, a priest will assail you. Kill him and
take the lava-lamp of Akbaa which he is carrying.

71.
If you haven't yet opened Iserbius' room, do so now and obtain the
final lava-lamp needed to open up the room of death. There's also
a cool mini-troll inside a cage.

Smash the cage open (carefully, to avoid killing the occupants) and
cause the troll to be hurt very slightly (shooting a fireball above his
head seems to work very nicely). The troll will chase after you, hurling
abuse in a high-pitched voice.

Once you're bored, it should be simple to lock the troll in one of
the rooms.

Down below in the forges, are two priests. If we ignore them completely,
they'll only find out that their God is dead after they've finished
making loads of swords for him. Hehehe.

So don't go downstairs, and carry on to the room of Akbaa.

If at first you don't succeed, cheat

72.
Open the room, and take stock of yourself. At this point I had two
levels still to allocate, and around 40 skill points.

I put both levels into strength, and all the points into Ranged Combat.

It's virtually impossible for us to take on Akbaa in a fair fight (perhaps the fact
that we've got only 6 constitution points has something to do with this),
so, like playing Worms with the computer's intelligence set to High,
we'll have to cheat and cause the opponent's AI to crash.

This is what you do.

73.
Enter the room of Akbaa and give Iserbius a clip round the ear with the
meteor sword. As soon as he's transformed, go to the left-hand slope,
run up it and sit up there like a vulture.

Akbaa may summon a daemon, but that doesn't really matter.

If Akbaa manages to start up his spell of Tractor Beam, that does
matter, because you'll fall off your perch. If so, run around and wait
for the spell to stop, then get back up there.

Akbaa won't be able to do that again after the first time.

74.
Now, the wonderful thing about being a vulture is that Akbaa simply
doesn't know what to do. He can't find you and just sits there like a lemon.
So does the daemon.

Yay, I crashed Akbaa!

Take out your bow, and start shooting Akbaa. Even the pain stimulus
doesn't trigger a response. Keep firing, try to aim for his back,
which gives you extra points. Eventually, Akbaa will simply plop down
dead and you can now pick over the body like a good little vulture.

75.
Unfortunately, that's it.
Now you've finally removed the sole obstacle between you and your worshippers, the Master will turn up.

The Master, Jabba-The-Hut's love-child, will turn up to whisk you away,
with no more reward than a pat on the back.
Of course, the Master's real motivation is to get rid of you before you subjugate any more populations.